We all know the situation: You find a bug on Facebook. You submit a bug report with the bug tracker. You’re looking forward to an answer. You’re not receiving an answer (in a satisfyingly short amount of time). So, why not hack the ecosystem and improve reaction times?

It’s been a really long time since my last life hack. So, without further ado, here’s the story of my latest one: How to attract more devs to your bug reports!

A couple of weeks ago, Facebook sent an email in which they asked me to take part in a survey. In return, they gave me a $75 voucher for Facebook ads. Whoop whoop! That sounded awesome! Few days later, I received the voucher. (BTW: Thanks, Facebook!)

In the meantime, we reported a new bug that was super annoying for us. We hoped to get it fixed quickly, but unfortunately, at the time of writing, it is still open.

So I thought: why not use the Facebook voucher to create an ad to attract all the eager Facebook employees out there! So I planned to place a wonderful website-link RHC (right hand column) ad in their newsfeed.

First things first: I needed a text for the ad. So I came up with the following wording: “Make FB a better place – Why not fix this bug, which is open since March 19th and really a bummer for us!”

Next: I needed an image for the ad to be more engaging. After searching for Uncle Sams “We want you” on Google, I figured that I should use Facebook’s proposal to use their own Stock pictures (provided by istockphoto, IIRC). Since the ad is probably seen by more men than women, I decided to use a picture of a young woman instead of old Uncle Sam for even more conversion!

Last step: Appropriate Targeting! I used the “working” condition to restrict only user who work for “Facebook”, “Facebook HQ” or “Facebook Developers” and received 146.000 users as potential reach. That was too much! I needed to go deeper! So I targeted again and restricted the users’ location to “Menlo Park”. Still 4600 people left.

Finally, I realized what I was missing. I wanted to attract devs who care and really want to fix things! So, I also restricted the ad to be only shown to Facebook employees who like the “IFixit” page on Facebook! Boooom! < 1000 people. There we go!

Within just 5 minutes, the ad was approved and subsequently displayed to a Facebook developer! Awesome.

In just a few steps I hacked the ecosystem and created a win-win situation for everyone:

Facebook received feedback via the survey they sent out to me.

Facebook gave (virtual) money to me.

Facebook received (virtual) money from me (via ads)

Facebook employees are currently receiving really engaging ads in their RHC

My colleague’s bug report is currently receiving an attention boost

At the moment of reading, an Facebook employee might really likes my idea of this type of ad for open bugs

I had a quick work break for half an hour!

So guys, what do you think about this idea? Here’s the result:

Bottom line: Of course, there’s even more! I decided to not only show an ad with a young girl – I also made an ad with a cat!

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About Author

Johannes is CTO here at Die Socialisten and always looking for ways to optimize his code. He thinks that the best moment to start something is always now. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or on Google+!